Monday, January 21, 2013

The Propaganda Wars

Iran's propaganda Press TV interprets the news to suit its government paymasters. It has a job to do and it proceeds to foster upon the world stage its version of events as is deemed suitable. If Qatar could succeed with its founding of Al Jazeera on the world stage, then The Islamic Republic of Iran figured it could do equally well. And so there are Western, English-language versions of Press TV, and even a U.S. Desk.

Those who write for the station are those who share its ideology. And they are generally groups and warped individuals who enjoy deriding the Holocaust, finding a place for themselves within Iran's Holocaust denial claims and anti-Semitic tropes, particularly the one that insists U.S. government and media are controlled by Jews. Particularly beloved among its contributors are the claims that Jews were responsible for orchestrating the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

And although the Iranian Republic and its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad along with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini most enjoy sparring with the Great Satan America, they now have taken to devoting a goodly portion of their scorn and spite on good old Canada. With relations between President Obama and President Netanyahu strained to its limits, Canada has surfaced as the most emphatic supporter of the State of Israel.

And, since Canada also has a mission to unmask the Islamic Republic for the rights-abusing oppressor that it is, spurred on by the death of Iranian-Canadian camerawoman Zahra Kazemi, arrested in Tehran and taken to Evin prison where she was beaten, raped, tortured and murdered, Canada has been unsparing in its condemnation of Iran's human rights abuses. Iran's support for terrorists through its proxy militias, Hamas and Hezbollah do not endear it to the West.

Each year in the United Nations General Assembly Canada leads the charge to condemn Iran for its abuses, and succeeds, infuriating Iran. But the more recent expelling of Iranian embassy staff from Ottawa and the cutting off of diplomatic ties made Canada Iran's target for reputation assassination. "Canada's diplomatic posture has elevated its ranking in the regime's demonology charts", commented Payam Akhavan, professor of international law at McGill University.

Press TV's Tehran studios was proud, in October, to host a very special visit by Terrance Nelson, former chief of Manitoba's Roseau River First Nation - who travelled to Iran hoping to embarrass Canada - billing him as "top chief of Canada Aboriginals", and gloating happily over his charges that Canada is engaged in a mission to destroy its First Nations communities by genocide or any other means that prove successful. Mr. Nelson spoke of reserves as "concentration camps", never hinting that First Nations cling to them against better judgement.

One of the Press TV columnists living in Canada claims that the Norway catastrophe in 2011 was an Israeli plot "complete with rabbinical blessings for the murderers", (sic) which claim would certainly take Anders Behring Breivik by shocked surprise, and what's more infuriate him that anyone would attempt to deprive him of the fame and honour of having planned and carried out the mass murder proudly, entirely on his own initiative.

Reporters Without Borders identified Iran as being one of the "five biggest prisons in the world for journalists". James Devine, an Iran expert at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick stated he would be "surprised and disappointed" if Iran's new anti-Canadian tirades are at all effective in persuading Iranians of their slanderous distortions.

New accusations against Iran have recently been levelled through the New York-based ‘International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran’. Their recently released report reveals their findings that ethnic Christians; Armenians, Chaldeans belonging to the Orthodox Church, and the Protestant Christians, representing 25% of the 290,057 Christians in Iran (a low-ball figure thought to be more in the 500,000 range out of a total Iranian population of 74.7-million) are hounded, discriminated against and persecuted.

They are constantly under duress, living in fear of persecution. Many of them practise their faith quietly, in fear of revealing that they have abandoned Islam for Christianity, making them vulnerable to arrest on charges of imperilling national security, of apostasies. Arbitrary arrests are common; detentions, violations of right to life through state execution and extrajudicial killings often follow.

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has labelled the Iranian government the world's most significant threat to peace, and with reason, given its nuclear program and its threats against a geographic neighbour, let alone its oppression of its own people. Its Arab neighbours, with the exception of those now ruled by Islamists and with majority Shia populations, fear its intentions.

Canada is now committed, through its refugee program to fast-track citizenship for Iranian gays and lesbians who face the same kind of danger as Iranian Christians; arrest, detention, torture and death.